My Carousel Blanket

I'm showing you today my latest crochet creation. I finished this towards the end of April, but I started it way back in October. I've worked on it on and off, but it took a long, long time. It was some new crochet techniques for me, and those hexagons took me about two hours each! I really struggled to get through those, but when I did, the border didn't take long at all and the edging just took me a few hours. I was so excited to finish it.

The pattern is called the Carousel Blanket and it is inspired by a circus big top. I did the mandala way back in October with my friend Sarah. The middle part is raised, which is apparently an old Irish crochet technique. The mandala didn't take too long at all, I liked it.

The cream and red stripes are all exactly the same, just mirrored. I took the kit with me to Grassington back in November and did tons of stripes then. I didn't understand fully how to attach them to each other and to the mandala, so I did a different technique. I wish I'd stuck with it, because I understood it much better when I was attaching the pentagons. If I could have been bothered, I should have unpicked it and done it again, but I think when anyone else sees it, they won't see any difference. So it's fine!

The pentagons were okay. They had the same raised middle as the mandala. I understood the joining technique and I think it looks really good.

The hexagons..... took forever. They're not even - they're pointed so two sides are longer than the other. I had to count every single stitch and that just really really annoyed me. I usually craft most days, but these were depressing me so much that I only did them once a week at crafy club. I genuinely think I spent two months on sixteen hexagons. I was so frustrated. And then so happy when I sewed the final one in on 25th March!

At that point, the blanket was about four feet wide and I really saw it as a whole for the first time. I started the border, and I was supposed to count that there were a certain number of stitches on each side. I didn't. I had had enough counting by that point. I learnt a new technique for changing colours, which was good. The colours change so much though, meaning there were literally dozens of ends to sew in. Everyone hates sewing in ends! I got through that by doing it while I was video chatting with friends in lockdown. It meant I didn't concentrate very much on them!

The border took a month more or less. Then the edging didn't take very long. I love doing shells. However, I think the number of stitches maybe wasn't right, because I had to leave one stitch fewer in the shells. But, by that point I just didn't care anymore. It looks fine! It really looks perfectly fine to anyone who isn't a crocheter.

I sewed in the final ends and then it was done! I spread the blanket out to show Lee and to take these photos. I can't decide which part is my favourite. I love the colours so much!

I am however really ready to move on to a new project. I always am by the time I finish something. I may do some cross stitch, I may do another blanket, I may turn to another kit that I bought...

I think the whole is so stunning. I'm really proud of myself!

It's about five feet across all in, it's humongous. It wasn't until I was doing the edging that I realised quite how heavy and big it is

A closer look at the beautiful octagon mandala in the middle and the stripes around it. I'm so glad I made this!

A Crochet Heart for Owen

My friend Stacey had a baby back in June and I was considering what to make as a gift for him. I tie dyed some sleepsuits for him actually when we were tie dyeing in August, but I wanted to make something else. I wasn't sure what, but then in the course of tidying up, I came across this polystyrene heart that I had bought ages ago to make some kind of decoration with. I thought it would be perfect for a baby.

I crocheted a long strip to go round it, in a rainbow of colours. (Owen is Stacey's rainbow baby). I had all the yarn already on hand, I just picked out the brightest colours. I did seven rows of each colour I think, using the heart as a guide for width too. I doubled up on the lilac so that I could us that at the top of the heart, and then reversed the colours. The crocheting took no time at all. I didn't sew in the ends because I knew I could just hide them when I sewed the strip to the heart.

I did that with a length of red yarn and a darning needle. I tried to be neat, but went off course a little bit as you can see. But, it looks perfect from the front. Crochet is very forgiving and stretched easily into shape.

I found some cream aida for the cross stitch and pulled out black thread and red, orange, and yellow threads, again stuff that I already had on hand. I wasn't sure which font to use for Owen's name, so I googled a lot. I finally went with this pattern, which is called Beloved, which I thought was lovely. The cross stitching didn't take very long either and I'm pleased with it.

I sewed the cross stitch on to the heart using little cross stitches in the corners, with lilac thread. It's delicate but I thought it looked good. I'm really pleased with it in general!

Stacey loved it and says it's going in Owen's bedroom when he moves into it. His first name is one they both liked, David is after his dad, and Branwell is after Branwell Bronte as Stacey and Dave got engaged and married in Haworth. Isn't it a lovely name?

I like the heart, and I'm glad Stacey does too! I hope Owen does also as he grows up.

The long strip. I was making this at craft club

Later that day when I'd done the whole strip

During sewing on, I tried really hard to balance the colours right and I think I managed it. I sewed the two red ends together so it looked like a continuous strip

See, once it's done you can barely see the join

My sewing isn't bad, it went a bit off on the left there but is basically fine!

Once I had finished the cross stitch. I cut the pieces down to size a little bit before I put them on the heart

And finally, once I had sewed them on! Isn't it cute? I'm impressed with myself

A New Crochet Blanket For Me

I recently finished a crochet blanket that is for me! I wanted to make another of the blankets I made for Lee for Christmas 2017, which is called A Spicier Life. I enjoyed it so much the first time around that I wanted to make one for me. I actually bought all the yarn for this back in last autumn. I chose them based on a photo of wildflowers, although I'm not sure that translates into the blanket itself! I do love the colours though. I gave each colour a letter and followed the pattern; I didn't know what colour combinations would come up but I liked that random aspect to it. I don't think there were any colour combinations that I really disliked.

I started this blanket last October and made just over a third of it. Then for some reason I just put it down and didn't pick it up again. I was cross stitching quite a lot over the winter, then I made a blanket for my friend Amy, then I was doing something else again. However, at the beginning of June I picked it up again, determined to get it finished. It was extremely ridiculous to pick it up just as the heatwave started, because having a heavy blanket over you isn't ideal! But I did crochet when we went camping which was nice, and at home I rested it on my desk when it was hot.

I made a mistake about halfway through, and didn't realise until I had done thirteen more rows. That was one Monday at my craft club, and when I realise I sulked about it all week. I knew I had to pull the stitches out - I had managed to drop around 23, and the blanket veered in awfully - but I really didn't want to. Eventually on Friday I made Lee pull out the rows and I started again. It was fine in the end, but annoying!

I finished it last week, at the end of July. I changed some of the colours in the border, because I wanted to use my favourite colours in the border and end with Parma Violet, which is one of my favourite Stylecraft yarns. I had bought this ceramic heart button at a craft fair back in November with this project in mind, so I sewed it on and then I was all done!

I absolutely love it, it's so colourful and bright, and I can't wait to use it over the winter and for camping!

It's about five feet long and three feet wide, and made up of at least twenty thousand stitches

There are some lovely colour combos here

The ceramic button 

Don't you love it?!

A New Crochet Blanket!

Years ago, when I first learnt to crochet, I said I would make Lee a blanket. I bought a bunch of Stylecraft Aran yarn in Denim, Silver, Raspberry, Aspen, Fondant, and black because those were colours Lee said he liked. I chose a granny square pattern from a book and made loads of squares. I decided to crochet the squares together with double crochets, which makes a nice raised line between the squares on the "right" side of the blanket. I did this for two strips, and I'd made around 54 squares so I could have just joined the rest together and finished it.

But I didn't. I put all the squares and the yarn and even the book in a carrier bag and then forgot about it. I've worked on other projects since then, obviously, and I kept meaning to get back to this. I've had the bag behind my desk for about eight months, but still hadn't got round to it. Then I finished another blanket for a friend's baby (I'll share photos of that once baby has received the blanket!) and thought, you know, I really should finish that blanket for Lee.

So I pulled all the squares out, put them into strips, and started to crochet them all together. I had to make a few more squares to make sure I had the right numbers of each colour, and I was really careful to keep the order the same as I crocheted each square into strips. Once that was done I crocheted the strips into the blanket as a whole.

I've not worked with Aran yarn much - it's thicker than DK and so the blanket is really heavy and warm. I was using a 5mm hook. The black was really hard to see, so I know there's mistakes in it but fortunately you can't see them.

I decided to just do a simple granny border in both the shades of pink as Lee really likes those colours. I had just enough of the raspberry left, but ran out of the fondant. I decided to buy another ball off eBay but had to wait ages for it, so while I did, I sewed in all the ends. There was a LOT. Most of the squares I had already done, thankfully, but the strips of crochet all needed doing.

The yarn arrived eventually so I just had to do a few more stitches, sew in the last ends, and hand it over to Lee! He loves it and it's already on the couch. The edges are maybe a little bit tight, but I've decided I don't care.

Some Christmas Makes

As usual I made some stuff for presents for Christmas, so I thought I'd post some pictures here. I really like giving homemade gifts but they obviously take some work so I usually try to start in October. As it was, I was still having to try to finish Lee's the week before Christmas! Ah well.

Here's what I made:

When we were camping last summer I thought my uncle might like a new teapot and cosy. I ordered a teapot on eBay - it's enamel - but when it came it was smaller than I expected. Never mind, I made it a cosy. I just did layers of doubles back and forth, stitching in the back loop to produce the ribbed effect. did a vague circle for the top and then sort of sewed it on to the lid. I had left gaps in the cosy for the handle and spout, and then I sewed round the edge and pulled it all together. 

Neil really liked it, he said he was going to take it to work for his cuppas there! So that's good. 

My friend Cath asked me to stitch this Star Wars sampler for her partner. I used the threads I had so the colours are slightly different to the ones in the pattern, but I think they look gorgeous. This was a lot of fun to stitch, I've never made a sampler like this before. 

I bought this pattern for the Death Star ages ago, it's actually part of a bigger piece but I just wanted to make this bit for Lee for Christmas. It was a lot, there was so much black. I had to keep a close eye on the pattern and cross off with a pencil when I did a line. I broke it into quadrants which really helped. I love it, and Lee does too! We need to get it framed now. 

I pulled out all my jewellery supplies the week before Christmas because I had some new beads I wanted to make something with. I.... actually forgot about that, because I got distracted making some bracelets and key rings as presents. From the back: I made key rings for my cousin Peter and his girlfriend Beth, I love these circle beads. The yellow and orange glass bracelet is for my cousin's wife Beth (yes, there's two Beths in the family haha), the one in front of that was for my cousin Rob. It's made out of carnelian and amber, it's gorgeous in life. The one on the right of that is for me, it's made out of fluorite which is my favourite stone. It fluctuates between dark purple, dark green, and lilac. I love it. My aunt made me a bracelet for Christmas which is fluorite and silver, it's absolutely stunning and I love it. I've been wearing the two together.

Finally Lee picked out a ton of fun beads for himself. It says "punk/crust/grind/ska", which are all the different types of punk that he likes. He's been wearing it a lot. 

I made this for Caroline (my aunt). It's purple glass, clear glass, silver and purple metal beads. I liked this bracelet a lot, I may have to make one for myself! She liked it

I made everyone in my family a button tree or two. Aren't they fun? So easy to do, you just need some wire and a bunch of buttons. I added the bells on some of them because I had them hanging around too. Lee's was the pink one, he liked it, so we put it on the tree :) 

I joined in with this stitch along through Caterpillar Cross Stitch and kept up with it really well, so it was finished well before Christmas. I liked it, it was simple but really effective. I've signed up for a new, beach themed piece through the same site, which I'm really looking forward to. I haven't had this framed yet, but we put it on the wall over christmas anyway.

Lastly, I did get around to making some bracelets like I meant to in the beginning. The beads on the left are so gorgeous - the light blue ones are very beautiful, and the dark blue ones have a gold flash in them that I love. While I had everything out I made the bracelet on the right out of beads I salvaged for a necklace. I like these for a bracelet. 

There we go, some recent makes!

The Knitting and Stitching Show - Harrogate

At the end of November Lee and I went to the Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate. I had heard about it through my craft club, who were organising a full day trip. I knew that would be too much for me, though, so I asked Lee to come with me. You can get a Thursday ticket that allows you in between 3pm and 8pm for half the price, so I decided that would be plenty of time and got us a ticket each.

We set off in the afternoon and Lee let me out at one end of the building so he could go park. I ended up in the exhibition area and I'm really glad I did because I got to see loads of fibre artists that I might not have otherwise seen. Lee joined me and we looked at the exhibits, then went into the huge rooms selling stuff.

There was SO MUCH to look at, it was hard to no where to begin and I wanted to see stuff before I decided what to buy. There were craft supplies for basically everything. I do a fair few crafts as you know, so I'd taken along some money. I ended up buying some hand dyed cross stitch aida in gorgeous gold and green, and a thread holder in the shape of a cat, and Lee bought me a rag rugging kit that is for my birthday in January, so I haven't got it yet. I've never done rag rugging so I'm excited to give it a go!

Honestly I could have spent a fortune but I restricted myself. I had so much fun just looking at stuff, I would have liked to buy some beads and maybe some fabric, but I didn't. I would definitely go back next year, I think the late ticket was perfect for me at just £8.50!

I had also managed to do my nails that week, I was wearing this gorgeous rose gold polish from Models Own

Gorgeous nails!

These hearts were in commemoration of the centenary of World War One

Here's what I got!

A Blanket for My Mum

My mum is turning sixty at the end of May, and around Christmas when I made the blanket for Lee, I offered to make her one too. She chose the colour pack that she liked, but I decided to make Sandra Cherry Heart's earlier blanket, just called Spice of Life. Having made it, I think the first one is a lot simpler, but also a bit more boring in parts, there's quite a lot of rows that are just trebles which can get repetitive. I would make the second one, the one for Lee called A Spicier Life, again, if I made another - which I might! I'm not sure yet, but I do have two more packs of yarn ready to go!

Anyway, this is the Bollywood colourway and my mum chose it because she liked the bright colours. There isn't a colour I dislike in this pack at all, unlike in Lee's where I didn't like some of the paler colours. I didn't end up using Violet, because I needed one less colour and I thought there were already a couple of purples in the pack. I made a list of the colours in the original pattern and then matched kind of by "theme" eg Parchment became Buttermilk which are both kind of pale neutrals, and Petrol became Emperor because they're both quite strong dark colours. Lee helped me with this bit but honestly I didn't think too much about it, because I knew from Lee's blanket that it would look good in any order. I decided to just let it be!

I started the blanket around the beginning of March and I've been working on it a few hours a week every week since then. I had a bit of a break in the middle when I was making the baby blanket for Leanne, but I logged about 60 hours on this blanket all in all! It's a lot of work!

I tried to sew in my ends as I went along but it can be really boring so I didn't altogether manage it. I enjoyed the different stitch combinations, like I did with Lee's blanket, even though I think this one is technically easier.

The week before my mum's birthday I finished the body of it, so I just needed to do the border. It's a much less complicated border than the one for Lee's, but I took myself off to a knitting/crochet/craft group which was held at the library in Penistone. It was a nice group and I will definitely go back - it's nice to have that concentrated crafting time.

I finished the border at the craft group and the day after, so that was really good. I felt so accomplished again - it's so gorgeous and I'm so proud of myself.

I've got lots of photos taken throughout the process:

Look at all these gorgeous balls of squidgy yarn!

The foundation rows of trebles

Sewing in ends at some point

At this point I think it started properly looking like a blanket

I really liked this lilac hook, too. It's a 4mm

This was when it was big enough to sit under as I worked on it!

The body of it finished

The very last stitches on the border!

Ta da! I love the Bluebell of the border, I think it's a nice choice

More of a close up

I can't wait to see what my mum thinks!

A Blanket for Lee

So way back in September I was reading one of my favourite crochet blogs and saw the author Sandra write about her new crochet-a-long, called A Spicier Life. I have seen some of the original Spice of Life blankets and want to make one, so I thought this crochet-a-long would be perfect for me. I decided to make Lee a blanket for Christmas. I looked at the yarn packs put together by Sandra and chose the Taj Mahal colour way. I think they're all gorgeous, but I thought Lee would like this one. The yarn arrived around the beginning of October.

I started in the first week of the crochet-a-long, round the 4th of October. I stitched my long starting chain, and put stitch markers in at every tenth interval. The pattern is in repeats of 12, so if I did it again I would maybe put the markers in at every twelfth stitch. There are so many different kinds of stitch which really stretched my skills, but the instructions are really clear and concise, and there's lots of photos to help you. I worked on it for quite a few hours every week, although I fell behind on the crochet-a-long, which finished around the end of November. I kept it totally secret from Lee, although he did know I was making *something*. This cut down on the time I could do it in, though, especially as the blanket grew bigger and less easy to hide.

I eventually finished the border on the 22nd of December, about an hour before Lee came home from work! The border was a hard slog as it was quite a difficult few stitches and I made a few mistakes which I had to keep pulling back. But I was so glad and so proud, and I knew Lee would love it.

And he did! He was really overcome. I calculated that there are over 22,000 stitches in it in total, so it is a real labour of love. It is now living on the couch to wrap up with when it's cold.

I've volunteered to make another one but in different colours for my mum's birthday next year, when she'll turn sixty. I need to start it soon!

I'm so proud of myself, usually when I start big projects it takes me ages to see them through, but I guess the deadline of Christmas spurred me on. I knew Lee would appreciate it, which is the main thing!

There is almost nothing I like more than squidgy balls of wall all ready to be used! The colours are all Stylecraft DK in, from the top: parma violet, parchment, gold, copper, saffron, peach, vintage peach, mocha, petrol, buttermilk, apricot, dark brown, sherbet, and storm blue. 

Here is the full thing when finished. It's almost five feet long!

A close up of the border and the bottom of the blanket. Yes it has a definite top and bottom and front and back, since some stitches only really work from one side. 

Draped artfully on a table

 

Here's Lee holding it up on Christmas Day. Aren't the colours just beautiful?

And here's Lee using it for its intended use!

If you'd like to make a blanket like this of your own, the information you need is right here!

Baby Blanket for a Friend

My friend Gillian had her baby Lily at the beginning of July, and I had already started work on this blanket for the baby. I thought Gillian would like the yellow and grey theme, even though the grey ended up being much darker than I thought it was going to be. Because of that, I only did a few rows of grey and let the yellow speak for itself. I wanted to do simple granny clusters, but didn't want to do a square, so I joined up two squares to make a rectangle, and then started crocheting around them. I felt like it wasn't rectangular enough, so I added three rows on the short side in the yellow. The finished article is around 26" by 22", and oh so squidgy and soft. I really hope Gillian loves it and that Lily grows to love it and plays with it. By the time you read this it'll safely be with Mum and Baby!

Lee held it up for me. It's maybe on the small side for a baby blanket, but I'm sure it's fine anyway! It can be a pram blanket or something

A close up of the colours. I was expecting the grey to be softer

My auntie Chris compliment me on the neatness of my stitches, which is nice!